


Awake

by WritLarge



Series: Inception Bingo 2017 [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Community: inceptiversary, F/M, Inception Bingo, Mal POV - Freeform, Spooning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 15:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11558403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritLarge/pseuds/WritLarge
Summary: Dom wakes up. Finally.(1st alternate continuation of "If, If, Fucking If")





	Awake

**Author's Note:**

> Me playing with possibilities. Can be read as a continuation from my other Inception Bingo fic “If, If, Fucking If” though technically it could be set after any time that Dom died, though definitely post-movie.

Mal’s breath caught when Dom’s eyelids moved, lashes fluttering. 

“Dom?” 

“Give him a minute, love,” Eames rose from his own cot, carefully removing the line from his arm. “I think that’ll have done it, once it plays out.”

Eames had been a godsend. Mal had called in every favour she’d ever had in trying to find help with Dom’s dream state and had finally found it in a quiet MI6 funded sleep clinic hidden away in the back halls of Cambridge University. Still, if not for Arthur’s own connections, the red tape in collaborating would have delayed them much, much longer.

Arthur himself stood leaning against the far wall. He couldn’t enter the dream himself, as Dom had integrated a projection of him so centrally into his dream reality that adding in the real Arthur could have destabilized everything.

The result of Mal’s own attempt to reenter the dream spoke for itself.

Eames went to Arthur and they spoke in low tones. They’d been thick as thieves since they’d met, intently focused on the problem at hand, and Mal suspected that they wouldn’t be so quick to give up their collaboration. She hardly cared. If Dom would only wake, she’d be happy enough to smash the PASIV to pieces and be done with dreaming.

Dom’s head jerked on the pillow and his eyes snapped open, widening impossibly as they alighted on Mal.

“Is this real?” his voice rasped. 

“Yes,” she gasped, catching his hand up in hers. “Yes, Dom. You’re awake.”

“How long?”

“Two weeks.” It didn’t line up the way Mal had expected with dreamtime, but she’d come to understand that dreams were far more variable than she’d previously thought.

“The kids? Are they-”

“They’re fine.” Dom, who had been rising a little, slumped back as though his strings had been cut. “Everyone’s fine.”

Arthur appeared on the other side of the bed and set about efficiently disconnecting Dom and tiding the machine away. Dom stared.

“All right, Dom?”

“I-” Dom hesitated. “You look different.” Mal couldn’t be sure what he meant. Arthur was as he always was, clean lines and kind hands. Perhaps his hair was a little longer, the way it was brushed to the side and curled slightly down onto his forehead.

“A bit younger, I expect, and not nearly so rigid,” Eames answered. “Your projection rather magnified certain traits, competency, stability, confidence. Very action hero as well. An anchor through the maelstrom you were creating for yourself.”

“Action hero?” Arthur raised an amused eyebrow from where he was drawing a blood sample from Dom’s arm.

“Yes. A gun fight in the middle of a car chase, for example, where you were both the driver and an excellent shot. It was all very exciting, darling.” Mal smiled along with Eames and caught Dom beginning to do the same.

“That should do,” Arthur finished, smoothing a tiny bandage across the new needle puncture site. “We’ll let you know if we find anything odd.”

“I’m really awake,” Dom laughed a little. “Oh my God. Wait. When is this?”

Mal exchanged a quick glance with Arthur and Eames, who caught on right away.

“We’ll see you in a bit.” 

Dom’s hand tightened on hers, but he didn’t say anything until they were alone.

“Mal?”

“After the train. That’s when I woke up.” The horror on Dom’s face mirrored what Mal’s own feelings had been, waking up from the trap of the dream to find that Dom hadn’t followed her.

“So it was me. The whole time I-”

“Shhh. Stop,” she pressed her fingers to his lips. “Stop. You were right with the train. You saved me. I woke up and I don’t know why you didn’t. The mix, or some stray thought...”

“I’m sorry. God, Mal, I’m sorry.”

“No, no, Dom.” Mal lurched forward and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his neck, needing to be as close to him as possible. It wasn’t his fault, not anymore than their decades together below had been hers. “You’re here and we’re awake. No more regret, my love. No more. Please.”

Dom pulled her closer and she turned to fit herself next to him on the narrow bed, her back curled against his chest, spooning them together and finding her place as though they’d never been apart at all. The past two weeks had felt like an open wound, following so quickly after their lifetime together.

“You were there Mal,” he spoke quietly into her hair. 

“I know.” 

“Did- did you come into my dreams?” Oh. Her heart twisted in her chest. How could she explain?

“No. And yes. I did try once. When I realized you weren’t going to wake up.” She pulled in a shaky breath before continuing. “It went so badly that I made things worse.”

“The shade?” 

“Yes.” She never should have tried. Arthur had warned her. She’d been terrified, panicky, and far too upset, still suffering the effects of their decades of dreaming only the day before. 

“By the time Eames arrived, the shade I’d triggered had driven you into an impossible position. He and Arthur were able to develop a plan, refining safer ways to enter your deep dream and adjust the course of your story.”

“Limbo.”

“Not exactly,” she ran a hand up the arm that was draped across her waist. “Eames has rather strong opinions about how you’ve stratified dreaming so strictly. He refers to it simply as Deep Dreaming, where the subconscious and conscious aspects of your mind become so tangled that using methods like a kick or even death aren’t always effective.”

“I did die,” he said, barely loud enough to be heard.

“Yes, but you’d died in dreams before. I think the key point was for you to accept death, without expectation. Perhaps that was the difference between us with the train?” Mal had been uncertain then, trusting her husband who had been so sure of the outcome. 

Dom sighed, shifting uneasily. Whatever had happened, perhaps now was not the time? They’d been apart far longer from Dom’s perspective and he’d thought her dead somewhere along the way too, according to Eames. It would be a great deal to process. Those discussions could wait. Right now, it was enough that they were together. 

“Would you like to hear about the children?”

“Yeah,” Dom’s voice brightened with interest. “I’d love to.”


End file.
